Wound
by 1701dragonflies
Summary: Missing him is a wound without blood or gaping hole, no stitches or ointments. She thinks she's going to die of it just the same. Post 1.08 ficlet


Wound

Summary: Missing him is a wound without blood or gaping hole, no stitches or ointments. She thinks she's going to die of it just the same. Post 1.08 ficlet.

Dislaimer: The Musketeers is the property of the BBC and its respective owners. I just wrote this for fun with no copyright infringement intended.

Author's Note: This scenario has been done to death, I know. I just thought I'd add my part! Hope you enjoy.

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Constance lingers in the doorway, her fingers brushing wood. Sunbeams come in through the window and make everything light and beautiful. She wants to close her eyes and feel the warmth on her face, but since he left, every time she closes her eyes she starts to weep. Downstairs, her husband is working, she can hear his footsteps, if she strains her ears. D'Artagnan always clomped around, so much swagger and bluff and bluster, telling the world, 'I'm here, look at me.'

She sits down on the bed and strokes the linens. They're old, so threadbare that she will need to buy cloth for new ones soon. They have not been washed for days, not since D'Artagnan left. Constance presses her mouth shut and grinds her teeth, determined not to cry. _How he looked at me when I said those things to him_. She feels so ashamed, if her mama were here now, she would have slapped her. _You broke your vows with that boy, Constance. And then you broke his heart as well as yours. And vows mend easier than hearts_.

She wants to lie down and cry so loud that all of Gascony will hear how she grieves for one of its farmboys, who came to Paris to avenge his father's death but became a Musketeer and stole her heart. She wants to cry and cry until there are no more tears left, because keeping it all inside is exhausting her. Missing him is a wound, something that she feels from groin to sternum, and she knows its never going to heal. When she first married and moved to Paris she was homesick, so dreadfully homesick that her husband was worried she had some strange affliction, or that he had married a nervous wreck who cried at the smallest of things. She lay in bed for days, ate very little, could find nothing to make a smile grace her lips. She was sick, she realised, sick with longing for a place she could not go back to, sick with regret, just sick. This is worse. The sickness that she feels is killing her, she is sure. She wants to lie down and bury her face in the sheets where she and D'Artagnan lay and weep until he comes back to her.

She and her husband eat dinner in silence. Knives and forks scrape plates, glasses are picked up and put back on the table, wine shared. Constance drinks more than she used to, and understands why so many ladies do, now. Birds chirp outside and Constance smells the herbs that she grows in the small garden. She prepared too much food, still half-convinced that there will be an extra four men to feed.

"Someone wants to come and look at the room." Her husband speaks to his plate and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

"What?"

Her husband stares at her as though she were a child. _I can wield a musket and blade better than you on your very best day. I have killed men to protect myself and others. And you treat me like I'm a child_.

"The room, Constance." Her husband looks a little impatient. "Someone wants to come and see it. A merchant from Brittany, here for six months on business. I told him that he could take the room, if he wished."

Constance puts her knife and fork together on her plate, dabs her mouth with her cloth. "You did not consult me before arranging this."

Her husband stares at her with cool indifference and in that moment she wants to slap him. "Make sure that the room is tidy, and that there are fresh linens."

They don't speak for the rest of the night. Her husband retires to bed first and Constance stares at the fire for a long time. _D'Artagnan lit a fire for me once, in the winter. I was home late and when I came through the door he was on his knees at the hearth, arranging the wood. His head was level with my waist and all I wanted to do was touch his hair and let him push me down onto the floor, I didn't even care that it was dirty. He had no idea. What a woman I have become_.

The next day, Constance walks to the tailor's quarters of Paris for new bolts of cloth. It's a pleasant walk, as far as Paris goes, not too smelly and fewer beggars and thieves. In the distance she can just see the spires of the buildings where the rich live with their perfumes and parties and fancy cakes. When Constance was a child she wanted to live there, to live with a man that she loved, to have horses and dresses and things, just _things_. It was hard, growing up with nothing. Now she has more than she ever thought she would, but she'd trade it in a heartbeat to go back to her house and have her husband just be gone, and D'Artagnan there instead.

She takes the long way back, sits by the river and eats the small lunch she's brought: an apple, a piece of bread, some cheese. She touches the cloth she's bought and starts to cry, cry so hard and so loud that she doesn't think she'll ever stop, because her heart is broken, and she doesn't know what to do to fix it.

Boots in grass, swishing through the long stems. A flash of blue and Constance is scrabbling to her feet because the first and last thing she wants to see is him.

Its not him. Its Athos.

"Do not leave on my account, Madame." He removes his hat and gives her a sort of smile. He's a handsome man, and a kind man, she just wishes he'd let more people see it. There is a story there, behind his eyes. D'Artagtnan knows, of that she is sure, but he never told his friend's secrets and for that Constance can't help but love him a little bit more.

"I was just …" She stares at the bolt of cloth and wants to cry all over again.

"Enjoying the river?" Athos reaches into his tunic and comes away with a handkerchief, offers it to her. "I would ask what troubles you-"

"Please don't." Constance shakes her head, dabs at her eyes. "Please don't tell anyone."

"You may be assured of my secrecy." Athos stares at the river, the lazy waters. "I used to come here, often. Its very serene, is it not?"

"If you like that sort of thing, I suppose." Constance can't stop staring at the worn leather cuff strapped to Athos' shoulder, the Musketeer's mark. His is worn and soft, probably very comfortable. Has D'Artagnan worn a blister on his skin, because the leather chafes? Is someone treating it, if it has? "How is he?"

Athos' spin goes just a little stiffer. "He works hard, fights well. He was born to be a Musketeer."

Constance nods. Somehow, the talking makes her feel just a little bit better. "I know. And I'm glad that your Captain promoted him."

"He misses you."

Constance bites her lip and keeps quiet. At least she has not been forgotten. As much as her heartbreak shames her, D'Artagnan's indifference would be worse, that he should be whole and well and she the one who is wounded in a tailor's shop in Paris. Tears on a man who loves you is one thing, tears on a man who has forgotten you quite another.

"I hear that you are to take a new lodger." Athos says. "A merchant from Brittany."

"So my husband tells me."

"Have you met this man?"

"No."

"If he hurts you, or speaks ill to you-"

"D'Artagnan showed me how to use a blade, and musket."

"Still. You have been good to the Musketeers. I would like to see that repaid, if I could."

Athos walks Constance back to her house, his blue cloak catching the eye of everyone in her neighbourhood. How many of those wondered, if not about her and her handsome lodger, but about her with another of the handsome men who used to call on her at all hours of the day and night? Years ago she might have cared about her reputation until she realised that it was as fragile and as worthless as poor glass. What good is a reputation if you are miserable?

"Where have you been?" Her husband opens the door before Athos has bid her good day. He is not an attractive man, her husband, and this afternoon his little face is pinched and red. He spends hours in front of the mirror making sure that his moustache is perfect, keeps a little brush in his pocket that he uses to comb it. In a fit of childish rage, Constance wants to take the brush and throw it in their fire.

"Getting the cloth like you asked me to."

"You're late."

"The fault is mine, Monsieur." Athos tips his hat at Constance's husband, his face carefully blank. "I was uncomfortable with Madame Bonacieux walking home unaccompanied, but my errands kept me longer than I wished. I hope I did not cause you too much concern."

Constance's husband stares at them both. For a second his mask slips and his eyes are dark with hate. _He hates me_, Constance thinks miserably. _He hates me, and who can blame him? I humiliated him and shamed him when he was nothing but good to me. I don't love him, but I married him all the same, because he was a good match and what else is a poor girl who wanted things to do? Is that his fault, or mine?_

"The Musketeers are not welcome in this house, Monsieur." Bonacieux says. "Not any more. I thank you for your chivalry towards my wife and bid you good day."

He shuts the door in Athos' face before Constance can say goodbye, walks into the kitchen. Constance follows and for a moment she's back on that day. _Why shouldn't I list the ways I love you?_

"You didn't have to be so rude to him, Bonacieux." Constance says. "Athos has been nothing but kind, to us both."

"He is one of _his_ friends."

Bonacieux is leaning against the table, the same one, by the window. _Would you touch that wood if you knew what D'Artagnan had done to me on it? Would you want to stand in this room knowing that it held the echo of my love, a breathy little moan that you've probably never even heard in your dreams? Who knew that a farmboy could have more talented fingers than a tailor?_

"Punish me if you will, but not Athos. He is an honourable man."

"He is a drunk and his friends are libertines and brawlers. I will not have them in my house, Constance."

Constance blinks, once, twice. She stares at her husband and feels nothing but pity, pity and rage. "I assure you, sir, they will never darken your door again."

The weeks pass in silence. Constance is a dutiful wife, cooks and cleans and does as her husband bids. To his credit he does not ask much, and never darkens her bed with his presence. She is grateful for that. He doesn't know, but she kept the linens, from the lodger's bedroom. She felt so guilty about it that she made sure the new linens were stitched exquisitely, little blue fleur-de-lis on the corner, sewed with tears long into the night. The new lodger is an older man, curt but kind. He leaves flowers for Constance when she finds his favourite piece of fish from the market, brings her fine chocolates when his business takes him to that part of town. At night he likes to drink red wine and read until daybreak, and Constance will rise and dress to his drunken snores in the next room. When she is alone in the house she opens the box that she keeps under the bed. She tells her husband that it is for her female ailments, knowing that he will never think to look. Inside are things she has kept over the years that she does not want to share with him; a few lines of poetry that made her heart race and her bosom flush, a flower given to her by a boy who would have asked for her hand, had he not been killed in war, a locket that belonged to the woman who knew her father, after her mother died. Constance wanted to hate her but never could, because her father always laughed when they were together and she knew enough not to begrudge her father his laughter. She could not remember the last time that she laughed.

The linens live at the bottom of the chest, folded carefully. Constance presses them to her nose and smells hard, half-believing that she can still smell him, _them_, on the sheets. She remembers the flush on his cheeks, that first time. It made him look so young. "We did not even retire to your bed." He had mumbled against her neck, his hands gripping her thighs, slick with them both. "Constance-"

She had taken his hand and led him upstairs, slipped what remained of their clothing from them both and laid him down on these sheets, still just embarrassed enough not to use her bed. "I did not mind, D'Artagnan. Do I look like I wanted you to stop?"

D'Artagnan had smiled up at her, brought her mouth to his. In that moment her heart was so full of love and desire that anything in the world had seemed possible. "No, my love, you did not."

Later, when everyone has gone to bed, Constance ventures downstairs, where her lodger has left another one of his gifts upon the table. He uses ribbons; pink for her, blue for her husband. Tonight's gift is a bottle tied with a pink ribbon, a rose tucked against the cloth. Its sweet and fragrant and Constance cannot help but be touched. Their new lodger is an older man, with no family. _It must be a lonely life_. She bled, in the weeks after D'Artagnan left. It broke her heart. It was always a relief, before, to see those spots in the middle of every month. But when that time rolled around she had, to her shame, prayed that there would be no blood. _Please, please_, she had prayed. _Let something good, something loved, have come from this_. Is that to be her penance, a life without children to a man who hates her? D'Artagnan is young and attractive, free, a Musketeer to boot. He will find someone else, in time, someone young and pretty and unmarried to share his bed, and her belly will swell and curve and Constance will die inside.

She touches the bottle, traces the long, thick neck. The label peels a little, is damp on one side. Outside it is raining and the ink on the label has run. She picks it up and uncorks the stop, smells deeply. She smells fruits, sees an orchard and dirt and warm, long summers. She smells hard work and love, hours spent outside, tanned forearms and freckles. She closes her eyes and sees a simpler life.

"Madame Bonacieux." Their lodger's voice startles her, and she puts the wine back on the table with a start.

"Monsieur, forgive me, I didn't hear you-"

"Quite alright, Madame." Their lodger moves quietly, like her husband. "I see you found my gift."

"Yes. It smells wonderful."

"I was told it was a wonderful vintage. From Gascony, I believe."

_Gascony_. Constance puts the bottle back on the counter, wants to throw it in the fire. Deep inside, something bleeds and will not stop. "Where did you find this, Monsieur?"

"A winery, in town." Their lodger looks very unsure. "Is it not good, Madame?"

"No, its fine." Constance backs out of the room, the bottle left alone.

She is up with the sun the next day, a slip of paper in her hand. Her lodger had noted the address for her, offered to walk with her so she should not get lost. Constance had assured him that she would be fine, her heart lurching against her chest as she finds the place he had described. _What are you doing?_ The rational part of her screams. _What are you thinking, dragging halfway through Paris because your lodger brought you a bottle of wine from the same part of the world as D'Artagnan. Have you finally taken leave of your senses? Has that wound that you carry around inside you finally festered and made you mad?_ Constance could not say. Maybe she is mad, mad with grief and love and loneliness and shame and all those other things that live inside the place where her heart used to be.

"You got my message." A hand on her arm, the tickle of a moustache against her ear, and Constance is walking, away from the wine merchant, towards the throngs of Parisians. "I wasn't sure if you would."

Constance glances to her side, meets Aramis' stare. He gives her a small smile, ushers her through the throng. A part of her is surprised; if she is mad enough to see a sign in a bottle of wine, Aramis is mad enough for using it as a message. "Where are you taking me?"

"Not far. You must forgive the secrecy, Athos told us about your husband."

"Us? Is he-"

"He doesn't know that we're here." Aramis meets her gaze, his eyes a little cooler than before.

They walk and walk, away from the wine merchant's and the other places that Constance frequents, _over the bridge, down an alley, will they ever stop?_

"I hope you aren't taking me to a house of ill repute, Aramis." Constance can't help but feel a little uneasy, despite Aramis' presence.

"Nowhere that would tarnish your reputation, Madame."

They finally take rest in a small courtyard, not too dissimilar to the one at the Musketeer barracks. Porthos is there with a petite blonde who nuzzles his face whenever she gets a chance. She stops when she sees Aramis and Constance approach and melts away behind a tree, leaving nothing but wine and three glasses. They sit in the shade and Constance is glad; sweat beads her upper lip and dampens her dress, and she is sure that her hair has run wild.

"Madame." Porthos rises to great her, waits until she is seated to pour her some wine.

"Why bring me here?" Constance does not want to drink. She does not want to be in this place. She does not want to go home. She wants to take a horse and ride to that place she saw when she smelled the bottle, where the wounds she carried can heal and leave just a scar.

"Athos told us of your conversation."

Constance sniffs. "He said he would say nothing."

"Not the details, Madame." Aramis says immediately. "Merely that he believes you to be … unhappy with your current situation."

"Unhappy." The word comes out as a bark. Constance takes her wine and drinks it in one gulp. Porthos looks impressed. "That is a word." She stands up. "Gentlemen, I'll bid you good day. If you'll excuse me, my husband will be wondering where I am."

"He misses you." Aramis says. "He misses you. He says nothing, but he bleeds, inside, blood that no man will see, but he bleeds and it will kill him all the same. He loves you. Tell us that you do not love him."

Constance opens her mouth to say the words, but she can't, not when movement in the west entrance to the courtyard has caught her eye. A flash of brown leather, the swirl of a blue cape, shoulder-length black hair and a tall swagger, and then D'Artagnan is walking across the courtyard bearing an expression that she has never seen before.

"What is the meaning of this?" He stares from one friend to another, betrayal deep in his eyes.

"What are you doing here?" Aramis looks pained for his friend. Constance fears that she's going to throw up.

"What am I doing here?" D'Artagnan laughs but there is no mirth in it. "I followed you, at a distance. You both left this morning and Athos would not say why. I was worried. Now it seems I should not have bothered."

"Don't go." Aramis downs his wine and tips his head at Porthos. "We'll go. Come, Porthos."

"But the wine-"

"We'll get some more."

The two men are gone then, and Constance and D'Artagnan stare at each other with nothng but a table and a wine bottle between them. It is D'Artagnan who speaks first, his voice cold and formal.

"Madame. You should not walk back to your husband alone. Let me escort you."

Constance stares at the table, touches the grooved, old wood. The sun is shining and he is there looking so like he did that day in her kitchen when his words had been such a jumble. God be good, but she is a fool.

"I can manage, thank you."

D'Artagnan's eyes flash with something; surprise? Amusement? She could not bear it if he made fun of her. Never once did he do that and she would die inside if he started now, even though she would deserve it. "Madame, it is not proper. No Musketeer would ever allow a respectable woman to walk unesorted-"

"But I'm not a respectable woman, am I?" Constance makes her eyes meet his and sees his hurt. "How can I be, when I am here, with you?"

"You did not know I would be here." D'Artagnan wipes his mouth and she is sure that his hands shake. "No more than I knew that you would be."

"Would you have still come, if you had known that Aramis intended to bring me here?"

D'Artagnan smiles a sad little smile. "Madame, I would walk into hell itself with nothing but my wits, if I knew that you would be there to greet me. But that isn't what you want to hear, is it?"

_Yes_, Constance wants to say, scream, even. _Yes, that is exactly what I want to hear, because it is what I want to say to you too, what I want you to hear. But you promised your husband, didn't you? You promised him. Can't you keep this one vow to him, when you have broken the others?_

She smoothes down her skirt, wonders if she could take the rest of the bottle with her, a cloud of comfort in her mind. "Good day, D'Artagnan."

She walks home alone and he follows at a distance, of that she is sure. She turns around frequently, sees a flash of blue here, a Musketeer cuff, there. _He let me walk home alone, but I am not alone_. Soon she is outside her house and the feeling of being watched dissipates. A man walks past her with long dark hair, she catches a glimpse out of the corner of his eye, but then he is gone and Constance wasn't sure whether or not she imagined it, imagined him.

The house is dark when she opens the door, her husband by the fire. The lodger is nowhere to be seen and Constance can feel anger in the air, taste its bitterness.

"Where have you been?" Bonacieux does not get up, does not look up, just stares at the flames.

"Out."

"Where?"

"Out. I went for a walk."

"Where did you walk?"

"Why does it concern you so much?"

Bonacieux picks up the bottle of wine, touches the label. Constance feels something inside break. "Where you with him?"

"I told you that-"

"Where you with him?"

Constance straightens her back, thinks of D'Artagnan. _He followed his friends because he was worried about them. He always has. He puts himself in danger for them all the time. Why can she not be brave, like him?_

"That is not your concern."

"You are my wife."

"No, Bonasieux." Constance shakes her head and feels very free. "I am not your wife. I haven't been for some time."

"You broke our vows." Bonasieux's voice breaks. "You. With him, with that farm boy. He doesn't love you, you know."

"That may or may not be, but he loves me more than you." Constance says. "He at least does me the courtesy of looking at me when he addresses me. Of making me believe it when he tells me that he cares." She stops herself, wanting to say more but knowing that it will only hurt him.

"What did I ever do to you?" Bonacieux says. "Did I mistreat you, be cruel to you?"

"You were a good husband to me. I know that I've done you a terrible wrong, but … I can't stay here, any longer. To do that would trap us both and that would be a wrong more tragic than anything else. Don't … don't you want someone who fires your soul, who makes you feel?"

"I meant what I said." Bonacieux rises from his chair and stares at her. "About the Cardinal. I will make that boy's life a misery, Constance. I will make all of your lives a misery; you would prefer to be in hell than live your life when I am through with you."

Constance thinks about D'Artagnan's words, and can't help but smile. "And I would gladly walk into hell with nothing but my wits if it meant that he was there to greet me."

She walks out of the house with nothing but the clothes on her back and the chest from beneath her bed. She manages to drag it out of the house and halfway down the road before it lodges in a pothole in the rain, and Constance sits on the chest and weeps, the reality of her situation sinking in. _What have you done? What have you done? _

"Madame?" A cloak about her shoulders, and Constance looks up, into the friendly face of her lodger. Her husband's lodger, she corrects. "Are you ill?"

_Maybe. I haven't decided, yet_. Constance wipes the rain from her cheeks and laughs, laughs, for the first time in weeks. "I have just left my husband, monsieur."

When her lodger realises that he will never entreat her to return to her husband, he wants to take her to lodgings in a reputable part of town, even insists on paying for it. Constance shakes her head. "I would ask to borrow your cart, monsieur. I promise, I shall return it on the morrow."

He lets her go with the money in his coin purse and the food he was bringing to their table for that night's meal, and bids her good luck. Constance loads the chest onto the cart, and rides.

The Musketeer barracks is loud and raucous, despite the rain. There are four men training in the middle of the courtyard wearing quilted fighting tunics. D'Artagnan has his back to her, but the other three lower their weapons as soon as they see her approach, melting away when he turns around. For a long moment, neither of them say anything.

"He threatened to have you killed unless I gave you up, so I did, I love you that much." Constance says, tears on her cheeks. "And since that day I have felt like there is this wound inside of me that refuses to close."

D'Artagnan steps forwards. "He threatened you?"

"He threatened you."

"He threatened you by extension."

"It doesn't matter." Constance shakes her head. "I know … I know that I don't deserve your sympathy, never mind your love. I did you a great wrong that day. I asked you for honestly and then gave you none in return. I love you, D'Artagnan. I love you, and I'm sorry."

D'Artagnan nods, stares at her cart. "Have you left him?"

"I left him."

"What about your things?" D'Artagnan seems to notice for the first time that Constance is on a cart in nothing but a thin dress and is soaked to the bone.

"Nothing that cannot be replaced."

Constance has so much more she wants to say, but D'Artagnan has pulled her off the cart and kisses her so deeply it is like he is reaching inside of her and healing her wound, making her whole again.

"I love you, Constance Bonacieux." He whispers against her mouth, over and over again. "I love you, I love you, I love you."

Constance smiles against his mouth and tells him that she loves him too. And just saying it, the words she feels like she was born to say, is enough to staunch even the deepest of wounds.

FIN.


End file.
